Achieve the goal of universal access to modern energy services by 2030.

 Energy technologies have been greatly shaping society and the environment for the past two centuries. In fact, modern civilizations are largely dependent on fossil fuel energy technologies, which make high-density urban settlements possible. While technological progress has eliminated many problems, it has also added new and often unexpected ones. Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) arising from the combustion of fossil fuels have been the main cause of anthropogenic global warming. All energy technologies, whether they are fossil-based or not, consume resources, use land and boundaries are being breached for a range of essential Earth-system processes, including in terms of global warming and biodiversity loss, which is likely to lead to catastrophic environmental change. 

Despite two decades of climate change policies; thousands of programmes, initiatives, regulations, market-based instruments and international agreements; and the disbursement of hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, funds, research and development (R&D) efforts and development aid, the declared goal of establishing a renewable low-carbon energy system on a global scale remains elusive. In 2005, fossil fuels accounted for 85 per cent of the global primary energy mix, while low-carbon nuclear power accounted for 6 per cent, hydroelectricity for 3 per cent and biomass for 4 per cent. Modern renewables jointly accounted for less than 1 per cent. Global CO2 emissions have increased at an annual rate of more than 3 per cent, considerably faster than in previous decades. The past decade was the first in two centuries with increasing CO2 emissions intensities, owing to a “coal revival”, in contrast with the rapid conversion to natural gas in the 1990s. In 2010, the global share of coal reached an estimated 29 per cent, which in relative terms was higher than, and in absolute terms about twice as large as, at the time of the first oil crisis, in 1973.

 In the 2000s, China alone added more coal power capacity each year than the total installed capacity in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. These trends, which are diametrically opposed to declared greenhouse gas mitigation goals and targets, are by no means limited to emerging economies. Even in Germany, a country with one of the most ambitious Government goals for greenhouse gas mitigation, 10 coal power plants were under construction and another 12 coal power plants were in the pipeline. These fossil-fuel-based capacities will remain operational for decades and make greenhouse gas reduction efforts increasingly difficult. In contrast with the actual trend of ever more rapid increases in greenhouse gas emissions, global emissions would need to be reduced by 50-80 per cent by 2050 and turn negative in the second half of this century, in order to stabilize CO2 concentrations at about 450 parts per million by volume (ppmv), a target recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and agreed upon at the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change, held in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. Essentially, this would require making the power and transport sector carbon-free worldwide by mid-century, in view of the limitations associated with replacing industrial processes based on fossil fuels. Today’s CO2 emitting devices and infrastructures alone imply cumulative emissions of about 496 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 from 2010 and 2060, leading to atmospheric concentrations of about 430 ppmv (Davis, Caldeira and Matthews, 2010). In other words, even an immediate global stop to building new fossil-fired capacities would lead close to the envisaged global target of 450 ppmv by mid-century. This puts into perspective the enormous ambition of the global target, given the long-lived capital stock and rapidly rising energy demand. At the same time, about 40 per cent of humanity, or 2.7 billion people, continues to rely on traditional biomass, such as wood, dung and charcoal. 

Air pollution from inefficient stoves leads to an estimated 1.5 million premature deaths per year, more than from malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. About one fifth of humanity or 1.4 billion people, continues to live without access to electricity, mainly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (International Energy Agency, United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2010). Many more, especially in urban areas, have access but cannot afford to make full use of it. 

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change proposed the goal of universal access to modern energy services by 2030 (United Nations, 2010a). It is important to note that bringing universal access to modern energy services to almost 3 billion people would require only about 3 per cent higher electricity generation, less than 1 per cent more demand for oil and less than 1 per cent more CO2 by 2030 (International Energy Agency, United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Industrial DevelopmentOrganization, 2010). Thus, the development aspirations of the world’s poor are not in conflict with efforts to solve the climate problem. The 500 million richest people, who constitute only 7 per cent of the world population, are responsible for half of all greenhouse emissions. They live in every country of the world and earn more than the average citizen of the United States of America. In contrast, the poorest 3.1 billion people are responsible for only 5-10 per cent of the total. The global energy challenge is immense, as evidenced by the multiple global objectives explored by the Global Energy Assessment (GEA): (a) to ensure universal access to electricity and modern cooking fuels by 2030; (b) to reduce premature deaths due to air pollution by 50 per cent by 2030; (c) to limit global average temperature change to 2° C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 (with a probability of greater than 50 per cent); and (d) to establish energy security, for example, to limit energy trading and increase diversity and resilience of energy supply by 2050. Meeting GEA objectives requires a complete transformation of the global energy technology system in the course of one generation, which is a considerably shorter time-frame than was the case for historical energy transitions. Governments have called for concerted actions to acceleratetechnology change towards cleaner energy technology. Many technology optimists believe such acceleration is essential and have in this regard coined the term “energy technologyinnovation imperative”. Innovation in this context encompasses the full spectrum ranging from incremental improvements to radical breakthroughs and from technologies and infrastructure to social institutions and individual behaviours. Simplistic solutions dominate present national and global debates on how to meet the energy technology innovation imperative. Technology optimists suggest “big push” policies to scale up available technologies. Others focus on market incentives and hope that the necessary technological transformation will come about by “getting prices right” through internalizing environmental externalities. Several Governments in Asia are pursuing energy technology-focused industrial policies, with mostly positive developmental benefits. However, evidence suggests that none of these approaches has the potential to sufficiently accelerate energy technology change on the required global scales. Indeed, most Government energy technology programmes and private sector projects have not met their overambitious goals in recent decades. Reality checks are needed to enable Governments to devise better policies and programmes at scales commensurate with the challenge. Better-focused and greater efforts to move to cleaner and renewable energy will be needed to ensure climate stabilization while allowing developing countries to satisfy their rapidly increasing demand for commercial energy which is linked to their development aspirations. Historically, such huge challenges were addressed consecutively rather than concurrently